"Life is about being a wealthy bigoted, racist drug addicted pig and of course, money and the relationships having money and influence can create, with people who worship your every word. you have to have sycophants like The Queen and Needy to keep things rolling."

El Rushbo has it right about what matters here. At work, when you look back, it isn't the money you made or the projects you were on, it's the people who stood by you and made it fun. Same at home and, especially, in a marriage.

"Life is about being a wealthy bigoted, racist drug addicted pig and of course, money and the relationships having money and influence can create, with people who worship your every word. you have to have sycophants like The Queen and Needy to keep things rolling."

Ah yes, trash talking by the envious stalkers again. Rush may have a share of sychopants as do all rich men, but that is not his fault. And no amount of trash talking takes away the service that El Rushbo makes to all who enjoy a well argued analysis of political games from all sides. He is as good as I've ever seen. The man is a true intellectual in the sense that he first defines his subjects and their ideas from which he than rationally deduces what we can expect from them next. And he is right again. But the Hydra-headed Obama has been quite a challenge for El Rushbo and for every one else that wants Obama to do the good things he continuously, and falsely, promises. We just resist his offers to be our super ruler over all things in crisis a la Chavez and Putin.

I thought it was interesting simply because Rush Limbaugh isn't exactly known for his mushy sentimentality.

Limbaugh getting in touch with his inner Oprah is as unusual as... well, as Jeremy or Ritmo responding to a conservative without bitterness and bile. Absolutely comment-worthy, if only because it happens so seldom.

I comment free of bile to conservative intellects and those free of bile themselves. It's often hard because for every comment from Jeremy there are a multitude of vomitous excretions from the likes of "Meth-Head" Methadras and way too many others to count. Further, Rush Limbaugh is one of the most bilious individuals on the air anywhere. Period. He invented the genre. To complain about bile from the left in defense of Limblown makes about as much sense as complaining about the smell of turpentine at a sewage disposal plant.

And to repeat the first comment (and others), if the sentiment was sincere, it was expressed in way too shallow a manner to respect. He's been married multiple times and does seem to have engaged in sex tourism. You can be happy for his (likely, temporary) happiness. Just don't expect me to assume someone as bombastic as Limblown to be an expert on the gentler sentiments, or how to keep them together.

Seriously, I tried for pithy in the first comment and all you saw was bile. It was witty, accurate and to-the-point -- just the way you guys like it.

Now, would it be like asking for the moon if we got some realism when it came to Limbaugh and the sort of person he really is?

Wow, you leftists really need to (a) show some compassion, and (b) spend an afternoon sometime and listen to the guy's show. He isn't a mean-spirited guy. The show is insanely popular not because of venom or bile but mainly because it is funny and original. When he is on his game his monologue leaves you feeling like it was worth the time to listen,even when you may not agree with every word. I think most leftists see a few seconds of Beck ranting or Hannity parroting some RNC line on Fox and just figure Rush is the same.

Ritmo...That was such good prose you just wrote that you get a free pass for hating the Limbaugh that many love so much. So what that he is a people pleaser who sometimes gets himself into trouble in his personal life? He is not an executive like the forever out golfing Barry claims to be. Rush is only a motor mouth that loves people and loves the truth who sometimes uses his strengths too much.

What I hate is the way he combines the shallow thinking and his pretension to an easy (and incredibly obvious!) answer to everything in life with some bile for good measure thrown in here and there.

(Maybe he doesn't think he has the answers to everything in life, but he sure thinks he has all the answers to every social issue).

I'll admit that I don't listen to him, but I have seen the clips that surface every time he feels like getting out line or whatever. He didn't seem to show much compassion to Michael J. Fox, a man with Parkinson's Disease. If anything begged for compassion and a contrite apology, one would think that sad episode did.

I listened to Limbaugh on the radio of a car I waited in one time when I was in college and my gf was off running an errand. I remember thinking that it was kind of fun, maybe even a bit intoxicating. But like one would conclude following an experience with drugs, I stayed away thereafter. Both provide answers way easier to anything in life than should be neurologically or psychologically possible. And that's the same feeling I get from his summation on love and relationships. He might be less clinical than Dr. Drew, but even for a celebrity like Mr. Limbaugh I really can't say that I found anything more redeeming in his soliloquy than that.

It gets on my nerves when I hear people say things like, "On their deathbed, no one wishes they spent more time at the office."

Can that be validated? What if you got fired from your job for coming in late and leaving early--you know, "stopping to smell the roses"--and your deathbed turns out to be a soggy cardboard box in a filthy, rat-infested alley strewn with used needles and condoms. THEN you'd wished you'd spent more time at the office, eh, Mr. Philosopher?

I'm a right-winger but I've never been into Rush. His political commentary seems very entry-level to me. Too much rah-rah Republicanism, even when they're betraying conservative principles.

@ Paul...I have been on a death bed and come back. Yes, after that you do want to enjoy being with nice people and sons, daughters and grandchildren when you recover. Busy-ness does make money as you say, but as Jesus is reported to have said to his beloved friend Martha, the best part of life requires a little selfishness in spending some of your time with strangers, and family members who may have become strangers, if you are worn out by working. (Jesus called it being"cumbered with much serving" in the KJV's Red Letter verses).

People like Ritmo, who freely and frequently criticize Rush while at the same time proclaiming "I listened to him once," or "I watch the clips that surface from time to time" totally crack me up. What was that saying, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"? When you admit right off the bat you don't know what you're talking about, you've already lost any audience -- not to mention respect -- you might otherwise have earned.

Paul -- Limbaugh's style certainly isn't for everyone, but "rah-rah Republicanism" does not accurately describe his philosophy. He critiqued the Bush Administration plenty, and he has little love for most of the Republicans still in Congress.

Too much rah-rah Republicanism, even when they're betraying conservative principles.

He's not into Republicans; he wants conservative ones.

His fault is that he's also a social conservative. This results in week-long periods of really bad radio sometimes, until he gets past it.

Like his wedding monologue, if he keeps it up.

Everybody realizes that you marry the one who you can't live without. Everybody realizes that not everybody sees your own mate that way, and doesn't go on about how marvelous they are, except once to make the point how much you like them, which was the vastly overgeneralized point of "people and friends..." into banality.

Love all this defense of Rush! I listen to him....when I want to know what talking points are coming my way.I know where I stand with him, between "operation chaos" and stating that he wants this president to fail,he leaves no gray area. I'm glad you all like him. Im glad you stand with Ann and Meade whenever asked. I wish the Dems had that kind of lockstep.

Also -- and we happened to see this on television and heard it later on radio. Apparently Joy Behar just went off on Elton John on The View, calling him greedy. Somebody called him "a whore." And Megyn Kelly, who was there at the wedding with her husband, Doug, took Joy Behar to the bank in setting this straight. So I wanted to thank her for getting the truth out about what happened down there. Mark Levin did the same thing and Sean Hannity spent a lot of time on his radio show on the following Monday talking about it. As I say, it was quite instructive to listen to people who weren't there act as experts as to why any aspect of it had happened, the insults that people who would normally love and adore Elton John that were thrown at him by these same people, very, very instructive. Very instructive for anybody to learn truly about who the left happens to be.

Go ahead and wallow in your hate, leftists. It must be miserable to live such a twisted, bile-filled existence. It must suck to be you.

". . . but as Jesus is reported to have said to his beloved friend Martha, the best part of life requires a little selfishness in spending some of your time with strangers, and family members who may have become strangers, if you are worn out by working. (Jesus called it being"cumbered with much serving" in the KJV's Red Letter verses)."

I think that story is about being so busy doing things for God that you're not spending any time with him.

You know, the one thing I've taken away from all of this, is the impression that Elton John is an incredibly decent person. He's repeatedly taken heat for appearing with others who have gotten in trouble for making anti-gay slurs, like for instance, Axl Rose and Eminem.

However, he refers to it as "building bridges", which seems to me that he realizes that it's harder to demonize gays when you know one and consider him a friend...so he offers his friendship, and his example. I respect the Hell out of that.

As for Rush, accusations of his "homophobia" is those of racism. He opposes legal recognition of gay marriage. Big Deal. So do Obama, and for that matter, Elton John.

A certain amount of ribbing for his multiple marriages on the other hand, is expected. And warranted.

He didn't seem to show much compassion to Michael J. Fox, a man with Parkinson's Disease. If anything begged for compassion and a contrite apology, one would think that sad episode did.

This shows that you really don't listen to the show (actually neither do I because it is on when I'm at work).

The thing about Fox was that Rush felt and was illustrating through his monologues that he (Fox) was being used and exploited for cynical political purposes (stem cell research promotion). If anyone should apologize it should be those who so crassly used Fox as a shill for their political AND economic aims.

Re: his sentiments. Even in a crashed and trashed relationship, when looking back, there are still good times that you can remember. It isn't always ALL bad.

No matter how many times it happens, the commenters to any post about Rush Limbaugh don't see how they are being set up. Makes no difference what he says about any subject. The usual line up, the usual adjectives, its quite revealing the first hundred or so times its happened. By now you're just showing yourselves to be unoriginal, intellectual lighweights.

I wonder if he's thinking of having children. That's what popped into my mind upon reading that quote.

When he came back on the air after rehab and started talking about the importance of not trying to make everyone like you, a very common piece of common wisdom, there was something about the way he said it that made me think, "Oh! He's going to get a divorce!" And he did.

Freeman raises an interesting topic -- is having children at age 60 fair to the child, considering one's dad died at 72? No father around for your first date, your hs graduation, your wedding, your first child?

Not that a prospective child of Rush's would want for anything that money could buy, but a father's presence means a lot to the development of a young adult.

@FLS: "What is funny about the Rush Limbaugh Show? What gave you a bellylaugh (or even a tiny chuckle) from today's show?"

I don't listen to the guy more than once or twice a year, so I don't recall the last thing he said that made me laugh. I do know it happens ten times per show.

The funniest bit I particularly remember was years ago when he was mocking the latest animal rights fatuity, and presented a version of "Born Free" updated with the sounds of guns and squealing animals. It was pants-pissing funny in its own right, but even more so because of the reaction I knew it would draw from the bunny huggers the next day. Which it indeed did.

Rush is right about this. It's a shame our culture is built around the idea of the acquisition of things in a denial of this simple truth. I know so many people sitting on a big pile of toys asking themselves "is this all there is?"

It's funny how a few comments on a shallow quote by Big Radio Guy demonstrates that I'm obsessed with him, whereas everyone else was too busy with something or other (on the same night that the president they're obsessed with gives his first Oval Office speech, incidentally!) to drop by until the wee hours and indefinitely thereafter.

Sorry you missed the relevant dialogue, Joan. Maybe next time. You don't win these things by outlasting others.

Anyway, you suggest witholding judgment on the value of what someone says absent a lifetime of daily indoctrination by him? That's crazy right off the bat. It takes some bit of naivite to believe that you can never know what an obvious polemicist is about in lieu of the experience of awaiting regular, er, enrichment by his words.

Here's a chin-scratcher for you, Joan: Althouse and I agree: He's a big bombast. She just finds it brilliant, and I think it's shallow and idiotic. There. The same conclusion. Just different opinions on the value of what that conclusion signifies. You'd do yourself a favor by distinguishing what people know from what they agree or disagree about.

I daresay I can listen to one speech, and maybe even one or two lines, of something stated by Lincoln or MLK to know the brilliant power of their oratory or writing, as well as the intentions behind their polemics. Same goes for Hitler. I'd say it's too bad that you can't do that. Maybe you're less ignorant than me; Congrats. But I'd also say you're less capable of rendering a useful judgment based on the effect of useful, if limited, evidence.

The thing about Fox was that Rush felt and was illustrating through his monologues that he (Fox) was being used and exploited for cynical political purposes (stem cell research promotion). If anyone should apologize it should be those who so crassly used Fox as a shill for their political AND economic aims.

This is bullshit. Limblown claimed that Fox exaggerated the effects of a crippling, progressive and debilitating disease, when in fact he did no such thing - Fox merely didn't take his medication for one day so that others could see what the disease really did to him. And Limbaugh did so through the use of repulsive visual imitations that took the appearance of mockery. Talk about cynicism.

For that, Limblown is a scumbag, although with enough self-knowledge to know that, even if he couldn't admit he was wrong, his stature and following required that he at least make an apology as half-hearted as someone as heartless and smug as he could muster.

This he did. It was about as qualified an apology as he could get away with, but it was there. It just wasn't contrite. You are wrong on this one.

you suggest witholding judgment on the value of what someone says absent a lifetime of daily indoctrination by him?

Not at all. But you yourself admitted that you don't listen to him, and only watch the occasional clip that gets posted. So you're sampling a very selected portion of the man's output, and you're accepting all the spin that's put out by his opponents without considering context or any other relevant information.

You want to keep jumping to conclusions, knock yourself out. I said nothing about a lifetime of daily indoctrination being necessary. IMO your limited exposure (from biased sources) is insufficient to form a fair opinion. Don't worry about it, though. You've got plenty of company among your fellow travelers.

I don't listen to him because he's unlistenable. In order to reach that decision, I, uh, actually had to hear a few of his sorry attempts at quality broadcasts. If in the great expanse between "never" and "usually" you require a qualifier, ok - here it is: I don't regularly listen to the Great Rush Hudson Limblaugh the 3rd, OxyContin Addict, Occasional Sex Tourist and Bombasticator in Chief of the Republican Revolution.

And I don't have to to figure out some basic things about the guy and what his schtick is all about.